Freshwater Road (33 page)

"You gon come to New Orleans?" He said it again as if he needed to
make appointments for after Mississippi to get through it.

She gave a short laugh. "If we live that long." They sat for a while in the
car, slouched down in their seats, she over by the passenger door, window
rolled down, slapping a mosquito on her calf. Still behind the wheel, his
long legs sprawled over toward her side, his right knee crooked and touching her thigh like a heated rock. The car sat tilting into ashallow gullet'
separating the weed-choked vacant lot from the road. Celeste watched
Mrs. Owens's house for signs of life. No lights came on.

Massive quiet coming now. Cicadas and crickets. Little eavesdrops of
sound. Ed smiled, the space between his front teeth making him look like
a boy who could spit for a city block with his teeth closed. "Mosquitoes like
you. Must be sweet."

"Wish they'd find somebody else to chew on." She slid her hand into
his. He squeezed it, his hand firm, the pressure sure.

He took his wire-rimmed glasses from his front pocket and set them
on top of the dashboard. That was the move that propelled her toward
him over the Naugahyde seat. She pressed herself against him until the
only thing between them was a dream of moving water. She felt his body
against hers, needing a rest from thoughts of death. He knew it-that's
why he'd parked away from the house. The mass of loneliness inside her
pushed outward, making her feel like a needy child. Take me with you,
when are you coming back? Memories of standing by windows in solitary
shafts of light waiting for the Cadillac, waiting for Shuck. Loneliness in
the absent-mother world.

When are you coming back? The kids at school ask me where's my mother.
I'm gonna start telling them she's dead.

Don'tyou do that. You hear me?

Ed unbuttoned her dress and kissed her humid skin, pushed the straps
of her bra off her shoulders, lifted her breasts out of her bra, and stroked
them until they swelled and quivered. He stirred the car moving to the
middle of the seat, then unsnapped the straps of his overalls and pulled
them down to his ankles. "Sit on me, sugar." His voice came from a hol low deep inside, his lips barely forming the words. She straddled him. He
guided her down slowly, his smooth hands around her waist until she felt
his full warmth reaching up inside her. He felt like dense morning mist
on a wide river softening everything in its path. The night and Freshwater
Road surrounded them. She didn't care that they were in a funky car on
a dusty road in a backwater town in southern Mississippi. She was glad
to be there even as the car seat burned her knees, the seam of fake leather
creasing to the bone.

She leaned over his shoulder and grabbed the seatback, then dug her
knees into the seat to brace herself. Sweat ran down her face and chest as
she began to move. She looked quickly through the back window and saw
no lights, no movement. They were safe for now. A moment. She checked
the house again to be sure no lights had come on, checked as far down
the road as the Tucker house. Nothing. He moaned into her throat, then
brought her face in front of his. She tasted his sweet salty sweat and probed
inside his mouth with her tongue, lingering on his lips and kissing him
hard then soft then hard again. Her dress fell away. He unhooked her bra,
bringing the straps down her arms and completely off. She smoothed her
hands over every part of his skin, as if to trace a memory for the hungry
nights ahead.

He laid her down on the car seat, opened her legs and kissed her thighs,
then ran his tongue up the middle of her body, his lips stopping on her
stomach, on her ribs, her neck and finally her mouth. He put himself inside
her and moved gently. She hugged him hard, stifling a cry tinged with
laughter that she buried in his chest.

"What's so funny?" He lifted his weight, his eyes the only lights on
earth.

"I'm not in Mississippi." Her head pressed into the car door, crooking
her neck. She tried to maneuver down. He held her still for a moment. She
didn't know how he'd arranged his long legs and didn't care. He sat up and
pulled her into him, taking quick looks in both directions up and down
Freshwater Road.

"No sugar, you with me and I'm sure not in Mississippi." He held her
close for a long quiet moment, his heart beating in her ear like the paddles
of a steamer.

A quarter moon traced in the sky. There was a sea of anxious night, too ominous for sitting in cars, talking in low tones. A slight salty breeze crept
up from the Gulf of Mexico, rustled around, and quickly disappeared. She
wished she could tackle it to the ground, make it stay.

"I'm sick of this heat. I need a real bath." She thought maybe she'd run
away, run down to Sophie Lewis's house and take a bath, sit on the sofa and
listen to music, pretend this whole time was something she'd conjured up
while she stared out those big shuttered windows.

"Be careful you don't hurt Mrs. Owens's feelings, now." Ed chastised
her.

"I won't. I was thinking of Sophie Lewis's house down near Carriere.
You met her?"

"Sure haven't. But I heard of her."

"You oughta see that house. Never seen anything like it."

"These little old houses lean to the side because of the weight that's on
them." He brought her back to the here and now. "Lot of people see this
place, know what's going on, but they don't take the step to come here.
You did."

"You did, too." She talked low, soft, sorting through the streaks of reasons why she'd come to Mississippi. "It was more than a step, Mr. Jolivette.
It was a long bad train ride."

"Yeah, but I was born in it." His neck was arched, his head resting on
the seat back.

She sat up, pulled on her panties, pulled up her dress to cover her breasts,
and leaned her head back by his side, her legs heading toward the passenger
door so he could rest his across the front of the car. He needed room. Ed was
quiet, both of them staring at the ceiling of the car as if it held a starry night.

"Lot of speakers on campus talking about the movement. I heard them.
I needed to get out of there." She closed her eyes, counting the days since
her last period. She was safe. She had absorbed the lesson, taken it to heart.
She'd not been with anyone since J.D. and that was a year ago now, but still
she counted the days every month out of habit. The days ticked off inside
her like a clock that was a part of her being and had to be paid attention
to no matter what else was going on. She never wanted to see Middleman
again. There would be no more trips to River Rouge.

"How long before you think you're ready to go to the courthouse?" Ed
brought her life raft to shore. Back to the real deal.

"I guess a couple more weeks. You know about the Deacons?" Fear
trickling in.

"Sure 'nough." He said nothing else.

She wondered if that was a tactical silence.

They stayed still for a long while, both of them teetering on the edge of
sleep. She listened so hard she thought her ears would crack and inside that
listening, she felt peace.

The night heat spread the smell of their lovemaking all through the car.
She imagined it smoothing out over Freshwater Road like the smell of night
jasmine, like the faint scent surrounding the stands of long-needled pines.
She'd better check the seat before they went inside. Matt would be in the
car tomorrow, ready to leave for McComb. Looking for signs, maybe, that
they'd done it.

Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner were found-or rather, their bodies were excavated from an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Celeste assumed the boys had been dead for a while. Mrs. Owens knew
from the beginning that they were dead. She'd said as much on that first
evening. She knew Mississippi like she knew the back of her hand. There
was no surprise in the discovery. But if any people understood the need
to nourish hope in the face of unfathomable distress, the Negro people of
Mississippi surely did. Tears, anger, frustration, but still the work of the
summer had to go on.

The dug-up bodies didn't create the slightest disturbance in the quiet,
peaceful veneer of Pineyville. No ribbons or flowers, no stores closed; it remained like a model train village with plastic people in the identical places
everyday. When Reverend Singleton and Celeste passed through town on
the way to Freshwater Road, Celeste spotted Mrs. Owens stepping into
Percival Dale's grocery store. She noticed there was no grimacing Hudson
at the gas station, no stone-faced Mr. Tucker pumping gas and cleaning
windshields. Perhaps, she thought, he'd gone home for lunch as a ruse to
keep track of his wandering daughter. She relieved Reverend Singleton of
the trip to the house and got out to help Mrs. Owens carry the groceries.

Celeste crossed the street to avoid an approaching white woman, then
crossed back and headed for the store just as the registrar of voters, Mr.
Heywood, came out onto the sidewalk eating an ice-cream sandwich that
was quickly melting. He stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. Reverend Singleton had pointed the man out to her more than once over the summer.
Celeste refused to cross the street again to avoid him, and surely wasn't
going to step off the pavement. Here was the embodiment of the reason
there were no Negro voters on the rolls in Pearl River County. Lanky and
smooth-faced, with brownish straight hair laced with gray strands, he wore
a khaki-colored summer-weight suit with a tie, and carried a newspaper
under his free arm. His angry eyes had sunk into their hollows so that
Celeste couldn't see their color.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Heywood." She followed her orientation instructions, the protocol when encountering the enemy, plastering a crooked smile
on her face while her insides churned. Be cordial, extend yourself beyond what
you thought you were capable of doing. Even innocuous encounters lay the
groundwork for the future south. Be mindful of the future. Let the hurts of
today and yesterday be put aside.

Mr. Heywood scoffed at her, an unintelligible word tangled up with
residues of ice cream that spewed out of his mouth and onto her face.
She didn't understand the word, just felt bits of cool milky spit spray her.
Another jiggaboo moment. But what was the word this time? A lexicon
of epithets to select from. Of course, he could say and do whatever he
pleased. He turned in a huff and fast-walked toward the Pearl River County
Administration Building.

Mrs. Owens had told her that Mr. Heywood had been instrumental
in getting the county to plant magnolia trees in the business district and
that he wrote poems for the local paper extolling the beauty of the flowers,
comparing them to his wife's white skin. He and his magnolia blossoms. If
he got to the sheriff's station before she moved along, he'd have her arrested
for loitering. It was an offense for a Negro person to idle on this street. If
you weren't working, you best not be on any street standing around looking
shiftless. Grandma Pauline used to say, "Everybody needs a shift." Celeste
had a shift all right, as the outside agitator, the northern rabble-rouser. She
stared at Mr. Heywood's back as he loped towards the sheriff's station, still
stunned at the vehemence with which he'd greeted her. She touched the
splotches of ice cream that clung to her skin, rubbed the sticky sweetness
from her face.

Mrs. Owens came out of the grocery store empty-handed with Mr. Dale
on her heels. "Now, Miz Owens, you sure you don't want to just go on and
do your shopping?"

Celeste saw again Labyrinth's blue eyes and blonde hair in Percival
Dale. Labyrinth's resemblance to him was quite remarkable, but for the
color of her skin. His hair didn't have the depth of color that hers had. He
was of medium height with a sturdy build and a pug nose. What had Dolly
Johnson been thinking in this small town to get involved with a married
white man? And did she ever bring Labyrinth into town? Mr. Dale nodded
to her but focused on Geneva Owens and her empty shopping bag. Celeste
had no clue as to how Mr. Dale viewed her and the work she was doing in
Pineyville. She'd been in the store with Mrs. Owens before. He'd never
been rude.

"You didn't buy anything?" Celeste asked. She wanted to get going.

"Mr. Heywood angered me so, I lost my train of thought." Mrs. Owens's
eyes flashed in the direction of the county building. "I be back another day,
Mr. Dale."

"All right, then." Mr. Dale glanced sideways at Celeste and went back
into his store.

A few more steps and Mr. Heywood would arrive at the county building. If she told Mrs. Owens about Mr. Heywood scoffing ice cream spittle
into her face, it would only make matters worse.

Mrs. Owens took off at a stomp. No sideways looks into store windows,
no head nodding toward a living soul, just a marching forward under the
magnolias, then out into the sunshine, then back under the luxuriant trees.
Celeste kept pace. "What'd he say?"